Victorville's Diederich is a billiards ambassador

At the age of 15, Nathan Diederich is one of the top-ranked junior billiards players in the country, and he's also an ambassador for the game.

Diederich, a sophomore at Sultana High School, has already amassed a long list of accolades on the national junior pool circuit, including a first-place finish at the Colorado State Championships and fourth-place at the 25th Annual Junior National 9-Ball Championships in Las Vegas.

A lifelong resident of the High Desert, Diederich's goals include winning a world championship before turning 18.

"My goal right now is just to be the best I can possibly be," Diederich said. "One of the titles I have in sight is winning one of the national championships, which would qualify me to go to a world championship. Then winning that."

Diederich started going to Gary's Victor Billiards with his father, Ken, when he was 11. Within a year, he was already showing some of the world-class skills he now displays in tournaments across the country.

"It (started with) me going one day a week with my dad to the pool hall," Diederich said. "Then it turned into two days, three days a week.

"From there it turned into him buying a table, then later buying a tournament-size table. I was probably 11 or 12 when I really thought I could take this to something more than just a hobby."

Diederich aspires to be a professional billiards player, and is looking to change people's perception of the sport.

"The public really has no knowledge beyond kind of the dark side of pool, the gambling, betting, hustling, things like that," Diederich said. "If the public just knew about the whole other side of pool, they'd probably be so much more open to it than what they see now.

"Right now they only see the movie like 'The Hustler' and things like that. They only see the hustling. They only see the gambling, the drinking and things like that. But it's really so much more than that. It's so easy to get into tournaments and leagues in organized pool."

Diederich would like to see more television coverage of billiards, both professional and junior events.

"We need to put pool on a bigger stage, especially the juniors," Diederich said. "There have really only been one or two tournaments that have been featured on ESPN or Fox Sports.

"Us juniors really are the future of pool. Without us there is no future. But the public needs to see that so that we can put more towards the future. Like if a mother and father see on ESPN the top 50 juniors in the country playing in a tournament, and then the winner gets a scholarship of some sort."

Diederich said he learned geometry quickly in his freshman year at Sultana, using the angles he learned in school and applying them to the pool table. Now he's hoping for organized high school leagues to develop in the High Desert.

"We need to have schools open their doors to having pool played in a league environment," Diederich said. "So we need to link pool with education."